I had a different column written for today — finished, polished and ready to file to my editor.

Then a mass shooting happened in America again, in Florida this time, in a school once more.

The thing is, if I wrote my weekly column on mass mayhem every time it occurs in America, I would write about nothing else. In the first seven weeks of 2018 alone, there have been 30 mass shootings in the U.S.

No, I simply cannot write about ugly shootings every time we have an ugly shooting, any more than I can write about beautiful sunsets every time we have a beautiful sunset over the Channel Islands.

Moreover, I try to use my space here each Saturday morning to lift spirits, not deflate them; to give smiles, not erase them; to offer a respite from front-page realities. As it is, I have gone against this goal and written too many columns on mass shootings — Las Vegas, San Bernardino, Sandy Hook and 10 more. What else could I write that I haven’t already?

Here is what I have not before said: I am ashamed of my country.

Make no mistake, I love America and cherish our freedoms. I am blessed to have been born in the U.S. But I am also ashamed of us. Ashamed that we allow the wholesale slaughter of our citizens — of our schoolchildren! — without doing anything meaningful to try to slow the carnage, much less stop it.

“Wholesale slaughter” is not hyperbole. Seventeen people were murdered and 14 more wounded this time by one gunman Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. By comparison, the Al Capone gang’s infamous “Valentine’s Day Massacre” left just seven dead.

Statistically, a Capone-like “Valentine’s Day Massacre” happens nearly sixfold daily in the U.S., with more than 40 gun deaths on average. In answer to this deadly gunfire, Washington, D.C., gives us only silence.

Our elected officials are big on voicing condolences and prayers, but small on offering any action. By a majority they insist gun legislation won’t work; that what we need are more guns because good guys with guns stop bad guys with guns; that criminals will get guns anyway; that citizens have a right to assault-style weapons; that cars kill people, too.

These are falsehoods and lies, rationalizations and distractions. No other country on Earth has this cancer.

America has a proud history of fighting for human rights around the globe. Mass shootings and school shootings, too often one and the same, have become a human rights issue here at home. For our elected officials to not take serious measures to try to stop the triggers from being pulled is to effectively have their fingers on those triggers.

To those who will attack me for being unpatriotic, I offer Teddy Roosevelt’s words: “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”

The same is true for the argument that we are to stand by our country, right or wrong.

The videos of the shooting that some Parkland students captured on their cellphones are truly chilling. It is also chilling to realize these school shootings have become so common that our students and teachers routinely go through lockdown drills the way past generations did fire drills.

“Only in America” used to be a term of pride. When it comes to gun violence, it is one of shame.

Email Woody Woodburn at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.